!? St. Padre Pio 'Three Days of Darkness Letter' (1950) and also the "12 Messages of Jesus"
HOAX / FAKE LETTER and PROPHECIES MISSATRUBUTED to him
Across the Internet
one stumbles across a lengthy, detailed prophecy about the Three Days
of Darkness supposedly dictated by Our Lord to St. Padre Pio in a
letter dated January / February 1950 to the “Heroldsbach Commission
appointed by the Vatican”.
Yes, there are
authentic Three Days of Darkness prophecies made by approved blesseds, saints and
mystics, but this letter allegedly by
St. Pio is an outright hoax.
St. Pio himself gave a resounding 'No' to a spiritual daughter who asked him if he did make a prophecy about the Three Days of Darkness.
When asked about the prophecy circulating in his name from 1950 about these dire world events, aka this letter of the Three Days of Darkness, he emphatically denied it TWICE to his superior and said "IT IS A FORGERY TO PUT MY NAME TO SUCH A THING."
You can read the article and the reply in the 'Voice of Padre Pio' (1960) also (Edition # 2, Vol 2, 1977) at the end of this page after the footnotes. Thanks to Ed Mello for sharing this article, which was given to him by the National Centre for Padre Pio.
Of interest, Fr. Culleton also affirms in his book 'The Reign of Antichrist', TAN Publishers, 1974, (p. 224) it was repudiated by St. Pio and his superiors
St. Pio himself gave a resounding 'No' to a spiritual daughter who asked him if he did make a prophecy about the Three Days of Darkness.
When asked about the prophecy circulating in his name from 1950 about these dire world events, aka this letter of the Three Days of Darkness, he emphatically denied it TWICE to his superior and said "IT IS A FORGERY TO PUT MY NAME TO SUCH A THING."
You can read the article and the reply in the 'Voice of Padre Pio' (1960) also (Edition # 2, Vol 2, 1977) at the end of this page after the footnotes. Thanks to Ed Mello for sharing this article, which was given to him by the National Centre for Padre Pio.
Of interest, Fr. Culleton also affirms in his book 'The Reign of Antichrist', TAN Publishers, 1974, (p. 224) it was repudiated by St. Pio and his superiors
* We also have to point out now that the so called "12 Messages of Jesus to Padre Pio" are also fake as there is a 3 Days of Darkness prohecy in them, as St. Pio himself said he never made a 3 Days of Darkness prophecy. Also, there are claims St. Pio 'wrote a letter to hs superior in 1959' with these 12 messages, but again it must be pointed out that in the 'Voice of Padre Pio' printed in 1960 (reprinted 1977) it shows he emphatically denied this 'Three Days' prophecy twice to his own superior, and said he "NEVER MADE NOR EVER INTENDED" to make this prophecy, also meaning he was not about to do so in the future either. So, thesse "12 Messages", are also a forgery.
In all, it appears a bunch of 'pious deceivers' got 'inspired' to write the the hoax letter of 1950 to try and get people to 'convert', basically, 'the ends justifiy the means' thinking, which was also behind the '12 Messages of Jesus' above, but God does not need lying tactics with prophecies misattributed to His saint to do His work -- that is the mentality of the Muslims who believe it is permissible to lie in God's name as long as the aims of their religion are spread. And, we all know who the father of lies is.
Note: you will also find variations on the same theme made in his name, i.e the Three Days of Darkness and the chastisements to come, etc., they are undoubtedly fake as they all stem from this letter and keep getting spun out into different forms.
Let us now look at the
various points that are red flags indicating that this 'St. Padre Pio letter' of 1950 regarding the 3 Days of Darkness is indeed a hoax:
(*) This letter was
supposed to have been written in 1950 – which automatically marks
it as a fake since after 1924 St. Pio was NOT PERMITTED BY HIS SUPERIORS
to write, and he was obedient to his superiors as we can see from the quote above. Fr. Charles
Mortimer Carty writes: “Letters supposed to have been written by
him after 1924 are AUTOMATICALLY SPURIOUS (i.e automatically known as a fake) by the very fact that Fr.
Pio scrupulously and reverently obeyed his superiors who forbade him
to write after that year.” (1)
If that isn't enough
to show this letter is a hoax ….
(*) In the 'letter'
there is a reference to a “Heroldsbach Commission” supposedly
appointed by the Vatican. Heroldsbach was the site of a series
of alleged Marian apparitions in Germany from the years 1949-1952.
At first, there were 7 seers, then spread to 300 as the visions
continued to 'manifest'.
The Vatican DID
NOT appoint the Commission to investigate Heroldsbach –
from the information I can find, the Commission was appointed by
Joseph Otto Kolb, the Archbishop of Bamberg in Germany. So,
a local Commission investigated the site, NOT the Vatican as is
claimed.
Furthermore, the
'apparitions' were not approved. In May 15, 1951 devotion was
prohibited; June 18, 1951 - suspension a divinis for disobedient
priests; then, in 1998 - Archdiocese of Bamberg officially recognized
as a "place of prayer” but did NOT recognise the apparitions
at Heroldsbach, they have NOT been declared supernatural, and
therefore they are still NOT approved.
Next point ….
(*) There
are NO CREDITABLE PRINTED / DOCUMENT SOURCES for any of these
reprints of the 'letter' that continues to circulate.
I cannot find where the letter was first printed or made public,
and no one else has seem to be able to find it either. If this was
an authentic document, it should be easy to find where it was first
published, or, at least to find some creditable media source either
Catholic or secular where it was first made public, or, at least some
of the earliest made reprints of it made to the public.
The author Desmond
Birch was not able to find any document either. Birch declares he
has in his possession sworn documents from the Capuchin Order stating
that no such prophecy ever came from St. Pio. All of Birch's
attempts to track down an authentic source from St. Pio have led him
to the conclusion that; “some person(s) either accidentally or
wilfully created these attributions of such a prophecy to Padre Pio".
(2)
In any case, we ss St. Pio declared he never made such a prophecy!
In any case, we ss St. Pio declared he never made such a prophecy!
(*) The 'letter' is
an ODD FRAGMENT: If it was an authentic letter, why not print the
entire letter, complete with the greeting, introduction or
explanation written by St. Pio before writing the words of Our Lord?
Any copy of the letter we seem to find only has the alleged words of
Our Lord, and nothing else that seems to prove St. Pio wrote it at
all, nothing of his expressions to compare with other letters, etc.
We do not even see a second person's introduction, saying ' I found
this letter written by Padre Pio, in the Commissions archives'. We
are expected to take 'the excerpts' of this letter at face value,
that St. Pio wrote down dictation-style Our Lord's words, without an
explanation from who found the letter, who leaked it, or even any
words from St. Pio himself. This lack of explanatory info is usually a
sign of a hoax, especially where modern documents are concerned. This fragment lack all credibility.
5) Also, for argument's sake, why would
St. Pio even bother to write to the Heroldsbach Commission about his
own apparitions or revelations regarding the Three Days if he did have them? We can assume
it would be beyond his jurisdiction so to speak to get involved with
Heroldsbach. If he actually had his own set of visions of the Three Days, it
would have been more likely for him to reveal it to his superior or
spiritual director and not to a Commission set up either by the Vatican
or the Archbishop of Bamburg all the way in Germany to investigate a faraway apparition
site.
Also, for the sake of argument, if he was told by Our Lord to write to the Commission in order to convince them about the truth of the apparitions of Heroldsbach, why aren't there any indications of this in the letter? Surely that would have been important to print as well in order to show St. Pio received a 'divine message' regarding the Heroldsbach apparitions?
Also, for the sake of argument, if he was told by Our Lord to write to the Commission in order to convince them about the truth of the apparitions of Heroldsbach, why aren't there any indications of this in the letter? Surely that would have been important to print as well in order to show St. Pio received a 'divine message' regarding the Heroldsbach apparitions?
In fact, St. Pio
actually told people to be obedient to the bishops regarding their
negative decision on Heroldsbach. Fr. Charles Carty writes that
when St. Pio was asked about the negative decision on Heroldsbach, he
answered: “PEOPLE MUST OBEY THEIR BISHOPS”. (3)
7) The details on the 3 Days of Darkness in the 'letter' seem very credible because it appears many of them were inspired / stolen from the prophecies on the Three Days of Darkness by Marie-Julie Jahenny, who is approved - you can read more about her prophecies, click here.
So, since we know St. Pio himself emphatically declared to his superior it is a forgery, a local Commision and not the Vatican instigated the investigation into Heroldsbach as the 'letter' claims, and that St. Pio obeyed his superiors and did not write anything after 1924, and, did he not actively promote Heroldsbach after the bishop's / commission's ruling, even going so far as to tell people to obey the negative ruling of the bishops regarding Heroldsbach, even if he personally believed the apparitions there to be true, it shows it is EXTREREMLY UNLIKELY he would have written a letter like this to the Heroldsbach Commission to sway their decisions, or received an order from Our Lord to promote the Heroldsbach apparitions against the bishop.
Our Lord always tells a true mystic to obey their superiors, He wouldn't have had St. Pio work against those whom He gave authority to in the Church.
6) The only mention
we hear on general Catholic sites of St. Pio regarding Heroldsbach is
that he told a group of German pilgrims that it was a true
apparition, but that is all. So, this annecdote seems to
have been taken as a fact. Obviously, someone heard of this and decided to
fabricate a 'St. Pio letter hoax' in order to try and 'authenticate' the Heroldsbach apparitions against the Church ruling, not to mention create some publicity.
7) The details on the 3 Days of Darkness in the 'letter' seem very credible because it appears many of them were inspired / stolen from the prophecies on the Three Days of Darkness by Marie-Julie Jahenny, who is approved - you can read more about her prophecies, click here.
Our Lord always tells a true mystic to obey their superiors, He wouldn't have had St. Pio work against those whom He gave authority to in the Church.
Considering all
these points, this hoax letter not included in the Timeline.
::::::::::::
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Rev. Fr. Charles
Mortimer Carty, “Padre Pio: The Stigmatist”, (TAN, 1973).
(2) Desmond Birch,
“Trial, Tribulation, & Triumph”, p. 283.
(3) Fr. Carty, ibid.
Below - Picture of the article from the 'Voice of Padre Pio', (#2, Vol. VII, 1977). (Image, given to Ed Mello by the National Centre for Padre Pio)
Below - Picture of the article from the 'Voice of Padre Pio', (#2, Vol. VII, 1977). (Image, given to Ed Mello by the National Centre for Padre Pio)
